Opening day of the main event of the World Series of Poker

Saturday, July 7, 2007 | 3:18 a.m.

DAY: 1 (Officially known as Day 1A)

BIG NEWS: Only 1,287 players registered for the first of four starting days of play in the $10,000 buy-in World Series of Poker main event. That put the tournament on track to enter about 5,150 players, far fewer than the 8,773 that took part last year. If the trend continued, the top prize would be about $7.6 million, less than the $12 million awarded to last year's winner, Jamie Gold.

STUDS OF THE DAY: Brandon Moran, a 30-year-old Chicago securities trader, and Daniel Shak, a 48-year-old hedge fund manager from Bryn Mawr, Pa., agreed to donate their first- and second-place winnings of $350,000 to charity in the "Ante Up For Africa" celebrity tournament organized by "Hotel Rwanda" actor Don Cheadle and poker pro Annie Duke. The $5,000 buy-in event, which wrapped up late Thursday, featured 167 entrants with stars such as Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Ray Romano, Montel Williams and Charles Barkley and a raft of poker pros. All 18 in-the-money finishers donated at least half of their winnings to charity, raising more than $500,000 in total. The money would be split between the International Rescue Committee and The Enough Project to help refugees and raise awareness of the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, where more than 200,000 people have died and 2.5 million have been displaced since ethnic warfare began in 2003.

BUSTED OUT: Poker pros Josh Arieh, Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Thomas Austin "Amarillo Slim" Preston Jr., Marcel Luske.

POKER TALK: Flush draw: When a player typically holds two hole cards of one suit while two of the same suit appear as community cards. The hope is that a fifth card of the same suit will give the player a powerful flush. Josh Arieh lost all his chips when he flopped a set - three of a kind - with a board of a six and five of hearts and a two of spades. Arieh held two sixes as hole cards. After an ace came up on the board, an opponent called Arieh's all-in bet with an ace and 10 of hearts and a flush draw, and hit a three of hearts on the river, or final card, for a flush.

UP NEXT: On Saturday, the second starting group of around 1,300 people will play 12 hours of poker to prepare for the second round.

HE SAID WHAT?: "Everybody else started doing it. You know, I wasn't going to be the only one to hold out and pocket a big bunch of money with a cause going on like this." - Brandon Moran, after agreeing to donate the winnings for the top two spots without finishing a final table faceoff.